Written on August 1st, 2008 at 12:08 pm by Darren Rowse
ProBlogger is Banned from StumbleUpon
This story has been updated at the bottom of this post.
This morning a number of readers have emailed or tweeted me to let me know that when they try to bookmark a post on ProBlogger that it leads them to a page saying that ProBlogger has been banned from StumbleUpon (thaks to @Fussypants on Twitter who was first).
You can see a screen capture of the page here - subtle isn’t it!?:
The page says that we’ve either been banned for abusing the service or have been asked for the site not to be included.
I can tell you that it was not the 2nd option (and if it had of been I would be pretty upset to see it presented as ‘banned’).
I’ve sent off an email using Stumbleupon’s contact form to ask for more information on this - but to be honest I’m pretty shocked and a little angry at this.
I can’t think of any way that I’ve abused StumbleUpon and if I had I would have thought that they’d have banned me as a user of it as well or instead of banning my URL.
I’ve got two theories as to why I may have been banned
1. ProBlogger does get a reasonable amount of traffic from StumbleUpon and perhaps the powers at be at SU think I’ve manipulated the system to get it. This is not the case and I’d suggest that perhaps I get more traffic from SU than some other sites because:
- I’ve written about StumbleUpon many times. Writing about any bookmarking site tends to get people who use that site to bookmark those posts
- I write to an audience who use social media a lot - ProBlogger readers are a very social media savvy lot and probably bookmark more than the general web user.
2. My recent social media love-in and list of bloggers who use StumbleUpon might have been interpreted abuse.
Perhaps I should have checked with SU before running that social media love-in but my motivations for doing it were not abusive. All I was hoping to do was to build community here on ProBlogger and give readers an opportunity to connect with one another in mediums other than here on this blog.
If anything I thought it would promote and build traffic on the social media sites that we developed lists for. If SU don’t want bloggers to use their service and don’t want sub communities within their user-base then this is their prerogative - but I’m a little put out that as someone who has actively promoted and used their service and even encouraged my readers to advertise on them that they simply banned me.
Some articles I’ve published on StumbleUpon for bloggers include:
- Why StumbleUpon Sends More Traffic than Digg
- How to Draw StumbleUpon Users Into Your Blog
- How to Write Posts that Set StumbleUpon on Fire
I’m also a little angry that people voting for my posts get led to a page that accuses me as the owner of this site of abusing their service. If that’s not a slur against my character then I’m not sure what is. If this upsets you I’d encourage you to Stumble a ProBlogger page, click the ‘contact us’ link and let them know what you think (that’s what they’ve asked for on the page anyway).
Dear StumbleUpon
I am obviously feeling a little put out by you banning my blog from your service.
I do love StumbleUpon and hope that you’ll reconsider your decision and I’d love to hear from you with how I can remedy any actions that I might have inadvertently taken that don’t fit with your terms and conditions.
update - just heard from StumbleUpon’s Community Manager (who I emailed) - he’s also commented his email in comments below. We’re going to work on sorting this out and then I’ll post about the results in the coming days so we can all learn a thing or two about why this happened and how we can avoid it happening to others. Fingers crossed that this is resolved soon.
update 2 - 1 hour and 44 minutes after I posted this post I’m no longer banned from StumbleUpon. I put this down to you - my amazing readership who reacted with emails, Diggs, Tweets and more. I’ve never seen first hand what a blog community can achieve like this so quickly. Now if only we could pull ourselves together and work so hard to do something that REALLY matters like doing something about poverty or the environment…. :-)
update 3 - Check out this post that I’ve written the full story of how I got banned and unbanned from StumbleUpon in under two hours.
99 Responses to “ProBlogger is Banned from StumbleUpon”
Jacob
August 1st, 2008 12:31 pm
Yeah…I don’t see how you could have possibly abused the system. Even the building of the names shouldn’t be considered abuse. You weren’t saying “everyone, click I like it on anyone who is on the list.” All you were saying was “network with these people, they share similar interests with you.” I’m definitely going to go contact them now.
RC@Thinkyourwaytowealth
August 1st, 2008 12:31 pm
Sorry to hear @ this, Darren. My guess would be #2- maybe all of the traffic, etc., triggered some kind of automated ban. I understand your getting upset based on the wording of their message. Hopefully this will get worked out. I will be giving SU my thoughts on this as you suggest.
Louis Liem
August 1st, 2008 12:31 pm
That’s shocking. I’m sure it’ll sorted out soon.
Shana Albert - TheNanny612
August 1st, 2008 12:32 pm
I am stunned. I will write an email to SU and see if there is anything your readers (me as one) can do for you. This just can’t be.
Rajaie AlKorani
August 1st, 2008 12:37 pm
I’m sure it’s just a temporary mistake, you’ll be in business in no time!
Leon Westbrook
August 1st, 2008 12:38 pm
I hope they fix that soon. That is pretty messed up considering all of the publicity that you gave them.
Luis Sandoval Jr.
August 1st, 2008 12:39 pm
You know, this has to be a mistake. What concerns me, at the very least, is that no one had the courtesy of contacting you. I’m sure they are not banning people all the time, so a few minutes to type up a direct email to the person would have been a better approach I think.
You’re right, to say that the person has been banned for abuse of the system does cast some doubt on your character. Luckily those of us that have been reading you for some time, and followed your work know better.
I will definitely write to them via their “contact us,” I just hope in the future they have a more user sensitive approach to matters like this.
Mike Goad
August 1st, 2008 12:40 pm
I left a complaint on the form that shows up with the message that ProBlogger has been banned. I’ve been on Stumbleupon for over 4 years and I appreciate the lack of commercialism that, for the most part exists there. In this instance, the have made a bad error and I think it needs to be corrected.
Jerry
August 1st, 2008 12:42 pm
Wow. You’ve done nothing but PROMOTE StumbleUpon. If I had a user like you, I’d be trying to partner with them, not ban them.
Very weird. It seems to show a real tin ear for understanding how online communities work. Stumble has really stumbled here.
Scott McIntyre
August 1st, 2008 12:44 pm
Darren,
I am shocked to learn this as it was me who discovered your last post on SU. My SU profile has a Google Page Rank of 5:
http://vitalsparx.stumbleupon.com/
I look forward to an explanation from SU why they are depriving its users of your invaluable advice.
Azmeen
August 1st, 2008 12:44 pm
I’m sure this will be sorted out soon. You’re not the kind of person I’d associate with the term “social network abuser” :)
All the best Darren, and hoping that this minor hiccup will go away soon.
Neal "thePuck" Jansons
August 1st, 2008 12:45 pm
That’s crazy. It was probably the love-in…they do limit friends and so on.
th13rteen
August 1st, 2008 12:49 pm
SU banned a few high traffic sites. I’m not sure why. Maybe they want to give the smaller sites a better and more fair chance. Like they also banned Digital Point forums (a high-traffic tech forum).
I don’t think you’ll get unbanned. See what they tell you.
Karen Putz / DeafMom
August 1st, 2008 12:55 pm
Considering how much traffic your site drives to SU, this is quite surprising indeed. Hope you can work it out with them.
Patrick
August 1st, 2008 12:55 pm
Surprised by this! I dugg it.
http://digg.com/tech_news/ProBlogger_Banned_from_StumbleUpon
Cindy
August 1st, 2008 12:55 pm
I can only say that this totally sucks. Whatever their reason for doing this, I certainly hope they see the error of their ways and correct this and soon! It’s just plain wrong of Stumbleupon to ban you!
Shannon
August 1st, 2008 12:55 pm
Ridiculous. And you’d think they might have the courtesy to EMAIL YOU and let you know you’ve been “banned” and why before they just accuse you that way. Hmph.
shawal
August 1st, 2008 12:55 pm
They shouldn’t banned you cause what is that site for if their not like people to socialized there??
Hope that SU will reconsider their banned program..!
Rami Taibah
August 1st, 2008 12:56 pm
I am totally shocked by this Darren!
I think you should check with Twitter and Digg now, we don’t want you banned off them now. Especially twitter.
I will def file a complaint!
Bicycle Touring Pro
August 1st, 2008 12:57 pm
I don’t like how they just ban you and don’t at least attempt to contact you first. And the wording on the “ban” page is certainly not good! That needs to be changed immediately!
Vince
August 1st, 2008 12:58 pm
Darren,
This is tragic for you and us. I have submitted the following to Stumble:
I think the banning of ProBlogger from your service is a disservice to users and the social media sphere as a whole.
Darren is not some spammer looking for a quick bump or buck. He consistently provides high value information worthy of Stumbles.
I respectfully request you reconsider this decision.
Darren Rowse
August 1st, 2008 12:59 pm
thanks all for the comments
On whether they should have emailed me - I can see why they wouldn’t I’m sure that they ban quite a few sites for abusing them and can’t imagine how many people they’d have to email - so I understand that - however I’m a little shocked by the bluntness of their page and the accusations in it (and that they’d serve that page both to banned sites and to owners who asked not to be included in their index).
Anyway - hoping it’ll be resolved reasonably soon as SU is an important site to me both as a publisher and as a user of the service.
LiveCrunch
August 1st, 2008 12:59 pm
Omg, wtf …did they at least send you an email ? I mean come on!!! so unfair. What about all people that misuse SU and don’t get banned.
Hope you will clear things with them.
Tina (mummifiedx5)
August 1st, 2008 1:00 pm
Hope it gets fixed up soon, Darren. That’s just crazy!
Lyn Leckie-Matassa
August 1st, 2008 1:04 pm
I find this rather amusing that they would ban problogger as it is one of the most viewed blogs. Maybe we should all boycott stumbleupon until they lift the ban!
This is ridiculous to say the least.
Alli ~Mrs. Fussypants
August 1st, 2008 1:08 pm
Darren,
Happy to help.Thanks for the link.
You have fans all over the world who love your work. We will all work to make SU make this right!
Alli
(fussypants)
Angela
August 1st, 2008 1:10 pm
Darren,
I am sorry that this is happening to you. This has to be a fluke for sure. I can’t imagine in a million years why OR even how anybody would single you out.
Please keep us in the loop on this situation. I am curious as to what you possibly could have done to upset the more sensitive personalities at Stumble Upon.
Keith Dsouza
August 1st, 2008 1:12 pm
Ouch, that’s bad. But I guess they will lift the ban soon, must have be a problem with one of their bots.
Patrick Sweeney
August 1st, 2008 1:12 pm
I honestly think it was something triggered by the Love-In, I’m sure the powers-that-be at SU weren’t even aware until it was brought to their attention. I’m sure they will get it fixed up for you.
karla | looking towards heaven
August 1st, 2008 1:17 pm
utterly ridiculous.
seriously.
did they even read your blog? anyone can see you are not an SU stumbler, but their biggest promoter.
will let them know, too.
Blessings,
Karla
Greg K.
August 1st, 2008 1:19 pm
It has to be some kind of automated mistake. Hopefully, they will unban Problogger soon!
Blake Raab
August 1st, 2008 1:21 pm
Hi Darren,
I Dugg the previously mentioned submission. I hope it turns out just to be a mistake. You’re obviously handling it the right way, and they should respect that by providing more information.
Nuno Teixeira
August 1st, 2008 1:22 pm
Unbelievable. Seriously. I also think SU is a great service–BUT this?!
This isn’t even about it being ProBlogger that got nuked for whatever reason… maybe it was an automated algorithym and it’ll be back on track in no time–but this speaks levels of bad about a service people have come to use for it’s “community” nature.
If you can’t build sub-communities then I don’t see why anyone would want to use it as as social hub for their website fans. It then turns into a rando-social experience–what, you ahve to “make NEW ‘friends’” within SU?! What if you only want ProBlogger readers as your friends? Oh, wait you can’t because there are friend-add limitations… oh wait, the very site that brings you together is banned…
Unbelievable. Makes me want to drop SU completely. Powerful, but a waste of my time going forward until they straighten this kind of thinking out.
Danielle Vyas
August 1st, 2008 1:25 pm
That sucks. I know I’ve stumbled PB articles and found them too.
Guess what I’m going to do, hit the blue thumbs up.
Have a good one.
Danielle Vyas
http://www.modernmusings.com
Sarah
August 1st, 2008 1:25 pm
Problogger gets banned from SU is like killing off the one person who has the most influence in the blogosphere that can help SU to get more members and more recognition..
Jeff
August 1st, 2008 1:25 pm
Darren-
While on StumbleUpon a couple of days ago, I came across an article that accused you of abusing the service because the reader had interpreted the Love-In as an attempt to create a voting ring to “vote up” each other’s content. Those sorts of arrangements are clearly against SU’s user agreement.
However, putting together a list of people from your site to offer them the opportunity to check out the profiles of their Problogger community peers shouldn’t, in particular if you explain that to them.
I found the post, sending you an email so they don’t get spammed.
Walter
August 1st, 2008 1:26 pm
I’m Walter, StumbleUpon’s Community Manager. I just received your message, and I think we can come to a resolution fairly easily.
I’d like to make a suggestion: can we exchange a few emails so we can address our mutual concerns? After that, I think it’d be really helpful if we posted the results of our confab here and on the official StumbleUpon blog.
If you think that’s fair, I’ll look forward to your reply.
greven
August 1st, 2008 1:26 pm
This is what I hate about social media websites… the Obscure rules behind them. Who knows how they decide things, nothing is clear… It’s like playing the Russian roulette.
Alli ~Mrs. Fussypants
August 1st, 2008 1:28 pm
This guy is obsessed with thumbing down active StumbleUpon users.
He rated Darren as a Stuble Spammer I notice.
http://kalchoedan.stumbleupon.com/
He needs to get a life.
United Voices
August 1st, 2008 1:28 pm
Well, logically I don’t see any such reason why Problogger should be banned in any social networking sites or social bookmarking sites.
If this is a mistake, hope they rectify it soon.
Michael VanDeMar
August 1st, 2008 1:28 pm
Quick! Someone Stumble the Digg link! :D
Frugal Dad
August 1st, 2008 1:28 pm
I’m interested to hear their reasoning for this…do give us a follow up post when you hear back from them. I can’t imagine a social media site not being pleased with someone who drives traffic to their site, writes positive reviews, etc. Hopefully this is just a technical SNAFU.
DT
August 1st, 2008 1:35 pm
I’ve a feeling its that social media love-in. If you think about it, it can be seen as creating a hoard of potential friends to push the system in your favour.
I noticed that all of the social media links, twitter/plurk/digg/stumble had your link as well on the top. Perhaps if you had removed it? Not sure.
Perhaps SU viewed that as unfairly building influence. Also it is likely that they noticed a whole bunched of links coming from your social media love-in page to many home pages that probably raised the alarm. 200+ links multiplied by the number of people visiting your blog is alot!
Regardless, i hope you get back on board! Good Luck.
Black Zedd
August 1st, 2008 1:37 pm
They’re being stupid. With all the recommendations you’ve made, they should at least give the benefit of the doubt and ask you first before banning you.
I mean, there’s no excuse if they don’t know about any Technorati top 10 blogs.They’re operating a social media! Plain stupid. Let’s hope you get unbanned.
Luis Gross
August 1st, 2008 1:37 pm
What? That’s Preposterous!
I am sorry to hear that Darren. I’m sure it’s some kind of misunderstanding. Keep us up to date with what’s happening.
I love SU, but I can’t believe they banned you. It’s more then likely to do with the social media love-in. I mean it can’t be traffic, because you’ve probably been getting large amounts of traffic from SU since like forever–right?
Hopefully the ban will be removed.
My Best goes out to you Darren.
Mattheosis
August 1st, 2008 1:38 pm
I am a little shocked myself. Go figure. It must be a mistake. Not that you would do something like this, but, if it has caused considerable traffic loss, and possible slanderous defaming, would you consider litigation, or suit against StumbleUpon. I mean, it has been done to Indexing sites. Why shouldn’t StumbleUpon be any less responsible?
Regards, Matt
Jolene
August 1st, 2008 1:43 pm
Wow! This is annoying to hear. I started using Stumble Upon b/c I learned about it here, I didn’t know about it before.
Hopefully they will understand very soon that people like me never would have signed onto their site if it weren’t for the PROBLOGGER site!!!
Banning you is ridiculous.
Michael VanDeMar
August 1st, 2008 1:46 pm
Bro, they lifted the ban:
http://www.stumbleupon.com/url/www.problogger.net/archives/2008/08/01/problogger-is-banned-from-stumbleupon
:D
Igor The Troll
August 1st, 2008 1:48 pm
Daren WTF? These networks are Assholes! Wkipedia, Twitter, Digg, Youtube! Now StumbleUpon what is wrong with these people?
Is Power going to their Heads?
I hope you get unbanned!
NYCWD
August 1st, 2008 1:50 pm
Darren,
I was able to give this post a thumbs up using their toolbar… maybe they’ve had a change of heart?
Joel Falconer
August 1st, 2008 1:52 pm
Regardless of whether Walter and yourself resolve this, StumbleUpon’s management are obviously, plain and simple, idiots for using potentially defamatory language on that page—if they’re going to make that accusation they better be damn sure about it.
Yu Ming Lui
August 1st, 2008 1:52 pm
Hey Darren, look forward to see this resolved. I was so shocked that Problogger could be banned from SU and I love SU! Keen to see how it gets fixed. Good luck!!
martin english
August 1st, 2008 1:54 pm
Walter,
Hopefulluy you and Darren can get together soon to get this sorted…. As you can see, there’s a lot of heartache going on, on his behalf.
The otehr point (which you’ve probably realised…) is that we do care about and we (the community) don’t think he’s abused stumbleupon, or more importantly, us.
VENKATAKRISHNA NALAMOTHU
August 1st, 2008 2:00 pm
Dear Darren, Stumbleupon is facing some problems or bugs. When I submitted some sites, those are successfully submitted but not showingup in the “submitted list”. They need to act quickly.
Bamboo Forest
August 1st, 2008 2:06 pm
I’m sorry this happened to you Darren. And, it is disturbing to me too - since my blog receives significant traffic from stumble as well.
Diana Valerini
August 1st, 2008 2:06 pm
This happens to hundreds of sites and users. But probably because you are extremely popular compared to the average joe out there… you will get back on the ride.
But I doubt that is the case for “smaller guys”
Diana Valerini
LiveCrunch
August 1st, 2008 2:08 pm
Should we show some respect to SU because they unbanned Darren in less then 30 minutes?
http://tinyurl.com/unbanned
Dana
August 1st, 2008 2:09 pm
I just saw your Tweet that you’re un-banned. I wrote to them and I’m sure loads of other people did, too. I had no doubt they’d un-ban you but nice that it happened so quickly!
Loads of bloggers can create one big, loud voice :)
Tim Hurst
August 1st, 2008 2:12 pm
Wow - what a crazy story! I’m glad problogger is back within the SU system and I’m guessing that the reason your pages get stumbled so many times is because they are always so clearly written, useful, and entertaining.
To celebrate your return I’m going to give this page a big old green thumbs up.
Tamar Weinberg
August 1st, 2008 2:15 pm
I can’t figure out from the comments if Jeff (above) is responding on behalf of StumbleUpon (though on second glance, it looks like he’s not). To be perfectly honest, while I did not participate, I think the “social media love-in” was a brilliant idea and was by no means malicious or intended to be abusive. Asking people to acknowledge others’ social media profiles is now a violation of the SU TOS? What about adding a StumbleUpon badge on a post and asking people to stumble content? Or using the “Send To” button on the toolbar excessively? Wouldn’t those “infractions” be far worse? (Oh right, those are part of the service and can’t POSSIBLY be abused! My mistake!)
I’m glad that Walter came and resolved the conflict, but this concerns me. The fact that Darren’s outreach of goodwill and community building got punished is disturbing. I’m disappointed that the StumbleUpon team acted rashly without even consulting with Darren to begin with.
Like I say about social media communities, research them before you promote content so as to avoid being ostracized and blacklisted by the community members. In this case, StumbleUpon, you guys should’ve researched Darren’s blog before you made a stupid decision that reflects poorly on your lack of judgment.
JMom
August 1st, 2008 2:37 pm
I’m glad the issue has been resolved. I gave this post a thumbs up ;)
Learned about this issue via your Twitters, btw.
I don’t know why anyone would want their URL excluded from SU, but the wording on their ‘ban’, I agree, sends the wrong message about the banned website. The word ‘banned’ implies some kind of wrongdoing.
Joel Falconer
August 1st, 2008 2:48 pm
@JMom—Absolutely right, but I think the damage goes well beyond the word “ban” itself.
It says that either Darren abused the service, or Darren requested that his site be excluded from SU submissions.
Everyone knows Darren wouldn’t have made such a request, and in the odd case that he did, I doubt he’d do it without posting on the topic here.
The automatic assumption for many people—especially those newer to the blog who don’t already know that he always operates with great integrity—will be that he abused the system. That’s an assumption damaging to Darren’s reputation.
He didn’t abuse the system, of course, which means this is defamatory, whether it lasted for an hour and forty-four minutes or a year and forty-four days.
Tom Stine | Living from Consciousness
August 1st, 2008 2:57 pm
Glad to hear that SU resolved it. But I’m still going to Stumble and Digg it…. No way you deserved this one, Darren….
Kari
August 1st, 2008 3:06 pm
I am really shocked and annoyed by this. I really look forward to hearing about their reasoning on this. I think in the very least SU owes you a major apology. I’m pretty sure quite a few of us problogger readers would abandon SU all together if that is how they operate. You did nothing to deserve that. Keep us posted!
Vacation Rentals
August 1st, 2008 3:15 pm
Yea, they also banned me for doing a similar thing. Unfortunately I didn’t get my stumble account back.
Mich D aka @MichDdot
August 1st, 2008 3:25 pm
I am glad for Darren to get this resolved but …
StumbleUpon is owned by Ebay and …
They are here for the MONEY, not you, not me, not him.
The honest answer to why Problogger was unbanned was simply the social clout. This is great for those who can pull enough people to be loud and make the pockets of Stumble tremble but …
That leaves almost every other member of stumbleupon as a target, every site shared a target, every msg sent a target, every other single one of us, a target.
With a company calling itself a social media site of the people while selling the traffic by using YOU and YOUR private information to deliver it …. ummmm …
Well just try and read the stumbleupon terms of use.
YOU / I / WE have no rights or recourse when it happens to the rest of us … Just sayin’
Congrats Darren/Problogger for you I am happy, you did a good turn and were rewarded. Not by stumble but by the people. That is cool, that is what it is all about.
peace bra
Mich D aka @MichDdot
Christopher Clayton
August 1st, 2008 3:27 pm
They had to unban him because their emails where flooding up!!!
lol
esonline
August 1st, 2008 3:29 pm
SU punishing those who seek to help broaden the network community is indeed very disturbing. Why would SU otherwise exist?
Tamar Weinberg
August 1st, 2008 4:57 pm
Vacation Rentals, a word of advice: use your name (instead of the term you want to rank for) in your profile (and in your blog comments here). Be genuine and don’t overpromote yourself. That might have caused it!
Alexandra Popovic
August 1st, 2008 5:18 pm
You go Darren - you’ve just shown us all the REAL power of the blogging people!
Wouldn’t it be great if we could all band together to right wrongs and support worthy causes? Bloggers Unite!
Cindy
August 1st, 2008 5:29 pm
I am so glad to see the issue is resolved.
David Hobson
August 1st, 2008 8:47 pm
So now stumbleupon has one rule for one person and another for the little people like me.
One of my websites was banned from stumble for reasons they would never tell me all i know is i NEVER submit my own websites.
I was told bans are NEVER reversed no matter what.
Deepak
August 1st, 2008 8:49 pm
Here is the issue mate! You keep telling people about how they can get a couple of thousand visitors from Stumble upon. AFAIK you even had a post a while ago through which your readers could win a certain number of visits from StumbleUpon. It is no wonder that you were banned.
I posted a similar comment on your site a while ago but you did not approved it. Let’s see if you are game enough for this comment to be published.
Tinh
August 1st, 2008 9:39 pm
I am shocked with this in deed but I have been banned without a reason before. Good luck to u
Bob Blick
August 1st, 2008 9:43 pm
I know the feeling. Google banned my 9 year old site with a PR6 back in September when my host service caused a 4 day problem. The only difference is Stumble Upon was nice enough to reply to you and review it - whereas Google ignores me.
Congratulations.
David
August 1st, 2008 10:37 pm
There are alot of product managers without alot of life experience out there with no common sense in writing business rules. Another situation like this happened on my domain with another service recently. It’s likely happening to many sites.
It does beg the question though, in a post CPM ad driven world will quality of traffic replace the current obsession many have with quantity?
Evelyn Lim
August 1st, 2008 10:44 pm
Recently, my account also got banned on another social media site. I was most angry, after spending time really participating in the community and voting for other people’s posts as well. I’ve yet to hear from the site. However, I’m sure glad that you’ve got a much favorable response from the folks at SU.
Expert Witness Marketer
August 1st, 2008 10:57 pm
I know that you keep a tight rein on keeping your blogs “on-topic” and not using/abusing the loyalty of the community you’ve built. That said, I would love for you to use this valuable forum for a humanitarian cause of one sort or another. Maybe you could make it a contest of some kind?
axel g
August 1st, 2008 11:01 pm
Darren’s got good karma : )
Darren Rowse
August 1st, 2008 11:07 pm
Deepak… mate….
the post where people could win traffic from SU was by me buying them an advertising campaign on SU - purely legitimate.
In terms of your previous comment - I can’t see it anywhere. We don’t delete people’s comment for disagreeing with us. Some comments get falsely picked up in our spam filter but your comments would not have been deleted if it was a legitimate comment.
Michael Beck
August 1st, 2008 11:58 pm
Congratulations on getting the ban lifted… although perhaps “congratulations” might not be the best word since it implies you “won” something… when this is a situation that should have never occurred in the first place.
Ultimate Blogging Experiment
August 2nd, 2008 12:51 am
This is all a little bit odd. I think the power to ban people is awfully getting ridiculous. This gives me one more reason to hate stumbleupon.
John Hoff - eVentureBiz
August 2nd, 2008 2:18 am
Glad to see you back, Darren. You know, SU really should consider their accusations wisely as they could get themselves in trouble for falsely accusing you (or someone).
I wonder though if you didn’t have such a big following and “voice” if you would have been unbanned so quickly?
I’m off to check out the banned/unbanned article now.
BTW, saw the vid of you and your son, he’s cute. I too am about your age with a 2 year old son and a 3 month old. Congrats on the new one!
SnoopBloggyBlog
August 2nd, 2008 2:57 am
Way to start off a Friday. Glad to see you got back in. Cheers!
Internet Marketing Joy
August 2nd, 2008 6:48 am
It’s first time for me to hear about this news..I just hope SU will reconsider their move..co’z I think in a way, their site will also be affected negatively.
Mary (MPJ)
August 2nd, 2008 7:37 am
It’s great that StumbleUpon reacted quickly and that you were able to use your social network to get reinstated, but I’m wondering what would have happened to a smaller blogger.
I was recently banned from Google AdSense. I understand that’s a slightly different situation from being banned from social networking, but I was also angry at the implication that I had manipulated the system. I was not successful in my appeal, but I couldn’t help but think that a blogger of your scale would never have been banned in the first place or that Google would have worked with you (and quickly) just as StumbleUpon did to get you reinstated.
I’d love a post on what smaller bloggers can do in situations like this.
Jason
August 2nd, 2008 10:32 am
Their system probably automatically banned you based on certain filters they have on the site.
I doubt they would be foolish enough to manually ban you, especially considering all the praise and traffic you give them.
moneymanager
August 2nd, 2008 2:48 pm
great to see the instant reaction from su.
it was heart less on there part to ban a member who is the heart of this blogging community
good luck darren
Ali A. Bashiti
August 2nd, 2008 9:49 pm
Wow to be banned from stumbledupon… talk about a blow to traffic generation… hope everything’s resolved now…
Rhea
August 3rd, 2008 12:23 am
Glad you got it worked out. I think banning must be on automatic pilot.
Anonymous
August 3rd, 2008 2:09 am
SU should be more polite, and it should give people a warning before banning them. But I think your social media love-in could indeed be considered abuse. It creates a group of people that just promotes each others posts out of self-interest. Which is happening already too much on SU.
Martin Jones
August 3rd, 2008 5:38 am
I’m facing a similar situation with Digg.
I purchased a site for my three sons to work on, only to find out the URL had been flagged by several sites for spam, etc due to the practices of the previous owner.
Every other site, including Google, StumbleUpon and others were willing to work with us to clean things up and have the bans lifted. Digg was not.
I was told in an email that regardless of the sale, the site was banned and the decision was irreversible. I’ve offered proof of the sale, etc. Doesn’t matter… The decision is irreversible.
Amazingly, the previous owner is still active in the Digg community with his other sites! Yet, our site is banned with apparently no recourse.
Brad Isaac
August 4th, 2008 2:58 am
Martin, I wonder if you could just create a new domain name and point to your site from it? That is unless Digg doesn’t ban via ip (unlikely).
You can keep your old domain name, but just use the new one as a “pointer”.
jhay
August 4th, 2008 10:28 pm
ProBlogger banned from StumbleUpon?! This is so unthinkable, it’s just cool that things have settled down and worked out good for both SU and ProBlogger.
Sime
August 5th, 2008 4:15 pm
Hey D… Your last line;
“Now if only we could pull ourselves together and work so hard to do something that REALLY matters like doing something about poverty or the environment…”
Why not?..
Sime
Obaid
August 6th, 2008 8:41 am
Thanks a lot. going through your blog has always been very informative. hope this complexity gets sorted out for you soon.i’d love to see a post on tips to avoid being banned, with the point that many amateur bloggers will also read it ardently for ‘enlightment’.
obaid,
Wendy
August 6th, 2008 1:51 pm
Well if you’re banned how come I still keep stumbling your site… personally I wish they would ban it, there’s nothing here to read that’s useful or interesting.
Sime
August 6th, 2008 4:20 pm
Hey Wendy - I’m sure you realise just how daft your post is?…
I mean, if you took the time to read the blog post above, you’d note that SU removed the ban one hour and fortyfour minutes later, which a: is why you can still SU Darrens posts, and, errr… how, if based on this blog post, do you know that there’s nothing useful or interesting to read? - you clearly don’t read the posts anyway…
Well done!
Recruiting Services
August 23rd, 2008 12:39 am
Why would they ban ProBlogger from StumbleUpon? That’s just plain silly. We should begin a petition for this one. That’s for sure.
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